Dance and Music
As with many cultures, dance and music go hand in hand in Middle Eastern music. Before the influence of Islam, Arabic music was associated with prostitution and drunken entertainment. Under the wide rule of Islam, vulgar lyrics and suggestive dancing by women became illegal. Much post-Islamic music is used in ceremonial dance and recreation. Meditation, trance and self-flagellation are often used while listening to music to bring one to a higher sense of God.
Read more about this topic: Middle Eastern Music
Famous quotes containing the words dance and, dance and/or music:
“Ask a wise man to dinner and he’ll upset everyone by his gloomy silence or tiresome questions. Invite him to a dance and you’ll have a camel prancing about. Haul him off to a public entertainment and his face will be enough to spoil the people’s entertainment.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“I could dance yet—only had a good fiddle—I like music. A good fiddle always starts the Negro, even if he’s old.”
—Sylvia Dubois (1788?–1889)
“He turned out to belong to the type of publisher who dreams of becoming a male muse to his author, and our brief conjunction ended abruptly upon his suggesting I replace chess by music and make Luzhin a demented violinist.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)